Until recently, I've spend most of my job-hunting time looking at various job boards and hoping for the best. I've now thought about giving the bidding-type sites a try. There are many of them, but using the larger ones will offer you more job choices.

The biggest and most popular bidding sites that would have projects for freelance writers are:

• Guru.com
• Elance.com

Guru is free to use, but they take a percentage of every project you win, and Elance charges a monthly fee to use their service as well as takes a small percentage. Another smaller site is pclance.com that specializes in web design and programming, but does have a category for writing.

The basic premise of the freelance bidding site is this:

1. Someone searching for freelancers posts a description of their requirements, along with their budget expectations and time frame for completion.
2. Freelancers place their bids for any jobs they feel qualified for. You usually describe yourself a bit, and the reason why you are the right person for the job, along with what you will charge and your turn-around time.
3. The employer chooses someone, and awards the job.
4. Depending on the site, all payment is done through the site, not directly between the employer and freelancer. This protects both parties and allows for any dispute mediation.
5. After the job is completed, feedback and reviews are left for both parties, which helps you build a "reputation" as a good (or bad) freelancer.

Be warned that bidding competition is fierce, and many employers are really not looking for high-quality writing. It is most common that people are looking for bulk keyword articles and will award the job to whoever will do it cheapest and fastest.

I have been a member of eLance for a couple of years now, though I took about 6 months off from it while I worked on other things. I have won some decent jobs through the site, and have started using it as my main spot for job searching. Stay tuned for a future article on the details of using eLance specifically for finding online freelance writing jobs.

(this article is part of a larger collection of Freelance Writing articles)